Cloudant Sync Security Configuration

Apache CouchDB http://couchdb.apache.org supports authentication and authorization functionalities. This functionality comes in handy when setting up a production server or when you need to restrict (anonymous) users.

Cloudant also supports authentication https://github.com/cloudant/sync-android#authentication making it easier to connect and authorize opensrp-client application.

Below are the steps required to configure this security functionality: -

1. Create a new Admin user

   For example, creating a system admin with "anna" as the username and "secret" as the password.

   > HOST="http://127.0.0.1:5984"
   
   > curl -X PUT $HOST/_config/admins/anna -d '"secret"'
   ""

   System admin is allowed to do anything to a CouchDB installation.

2. Confirm that the new system admin has been created successfully

   Without credentials

   > curl -X PUT $HOST/somedatabase
   {"error":"unauthorized","reason":"You are not a server admin."}

   With credentials

   > HOST="http://anna:secret@127.0.0.1:5984"
   > curl -X PUT $HOST/somedatabase
   {"ok":true}